Designer Trickery: Faux Floating Bed or Funky Fake Image?

What is wrong with this picture? At first glance, this bed looks beautiful – elegant lines, smooth curves, and an all-around compelling contemporary design. But are you being fooled or is there a trick besides some clever structure that makes it look as cool as it does?

Everything looks like it fits, from the complimentary brown wood and off-white colors to the sleek circular night tables and a realistically disheveled bed spread – but wait, why is the comforter at different angles for each photo shoot while the sheets and pillows stay in one place? And is that left leg edited out entirely?

If the other clues did not give it away, this diagram reveals the details that are missing from the images: indeed, the front legs are relatively far forward and close to the edge:

These elements that bring the design back down to earth (and support it on the floor, for that matter) are conveniently absent from the catalog-worthy photos of this Dylan Designer Contemporary Bed. We all know that some images are Photoshopped for catalogues and furniture is framed in unnaturally nice and neat settings for such shoots, but this is a good reminder that such trickery sometimes knows no bounds.